


The Vows I Made

by elicul



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Multi, The Sign of Three Spoilers, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-04-30 08:08:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5156426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elicul/pseuds/elicul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock rehearses his Best Man speech whenever John is out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> haven't even proofread yet. i'll go back through and edit later.

It needed to be perfect. Sherlock had called Lestrade a few days prior, but George was of little help. In fact, he had been quite impatient with Sherlock, and he left very quickly after his arrival.

Sherlock tried memorizing online articles about Best Man speeches, bought books on the subject, interrogated other people who had been the Best Man at other weddings, consulted his modest group of people in his life who put up with him and who he didn't outright hate.

Mrs. Hudson had been the first he had consulted. She came upstairs when she heard Sherlock shouting at his laptop. She didn't know much about computers, but she was fairly certain that they were not meant to be lying face down across the room from their owners.

She went to pick it up for him. "What's the matter, Sherlock?" The screen on the laptop had a few cracks running from the upper left corner. "Oh dear."

"Just leave it. I have dozens more," he said, lying down on the couch and gesturing vaguely toward his desk.

The place was looking more and more like a toxic waste dump ever since John had proposed to Mary (in their flat after he'd tried to cook dinner, how charming!) and she was going to tell him just that, until she really got a good look at him. She'd seen him come home covered in blood, playing slow ballads on his violin for days at a time, delighted about a new case, frantically trying to figure out something about a Moriarty character or something like that, frustrated and shouting at her, hell, she'd even seen him lying cold in a casket, or, at least, she thought she had. She was pretty sure she'd seen every side of him in the time he'd been living at 221B Baker Street, but looking at him now, he seemed disheveled and lost.

"Can I help with something?" She offered. She figured he would wave her off dismissively. He didn't like it when she tried to get involved when he was working, said that she just got in the way. Mrs. Hudson did a lot to make sure he stayed alive, his survival instincts were poor at best, as he was constantly forgetting that humans need to do silly little things like sleep and eat. She had always tried her best with him, having never had children of her own.

But Sherlock seemed to perk up at her offer. "I need to write a speech. John asked me to, for the wedding, and I have absolutely no idea how to go about it."

"Oh," she fussed. "Oh Sherlock, did he ask you to be his Best Man? That's wonderful. Won't be a little awkward for you? Given your history with John?"

"Mrs. Hudson, please focus. I need to write about John."

She sat down in the armchair closest to the door. "Well, you know him better than any of us. Just write about how different your life is now than it was when you first moved in here. I was so worried about you back then. I've started to worry again, you know."

He considered that for a moment. He tilted his head to look her over for a second.

Under his gaze, she felt like he could see right through her, so she tried to divert his attention. "It might be a good idea to look through that blog he runs. Talk about a few cases, about how John's a good man if he can manage to balance you out, huh?" She leaned forward and squeezed his shoulder before standing. "Make sure you have something about Mary in there as well. How you're happy for them, glad that John is happy. That sort of thing," she said on her way out the door.

Quietly, Sherlock said, "Thank you."

"Good luck, dear," and with that she went back downstairs to finish the dishes she had been washing.

Molly was a bit more specific when she tried to help Sherlock. She asked him to meet her at a cafe not far from St. Bart's during her lunch break. He was already waiting for her when she walked in, carrying several bags, but not dressed in her lab coat like he'd been expecting. She often walked out of the building still wearing it. He didn't really understand how everyone could be so distracted all the time, they're not thinking of very much at all.

She picked at the muffin she had bought, but only for lack of anything better to do with her hands. "Now, you'll have to be polite. Keep offending people to a minimum. Don't question anyone's intelligence, try not to boast, talk more of John than yourself."

"Molly, you'd think I have no idea how to interact with other people."

"You don't," she said sternly. "What do you have so far?"

He handed her a folded sheet of paper from his coat pocket. His wild handwriting was scrawled across it, covered in numbers and formulas and descriptions of an experiment that featured, does that say "human eyeballs"? She flipped the page over and saw a single sentence. "When John first broached the subject of being best man, I was confused."

"Well that's as good a place as any to start. Write about what happened when he asked you. Try to include a joke or two. Keeps people's attention if you're brief and funny."

"Yes, well, you all do have very short attention spans."

Molly cleared her throat. "Right, well. If that's all you'll be needing, I'd better-"

"No," he said, reaching for her arm. "Molly, please. I can't mess this up."

"Alright, alright," she said. "Try to say something that speaks to John's character." Sherlock makes a note of what she's saying. He has an excellent memory, impeccable, even, but anything pertaining to John's wedding has him particularly frazzled. "Alternate between serious and lighthearted. If you're too much in either direction, you're going to give off a bad impression."

"And why would I care what those people think of me?"

"Because John would want them to like you."

"Any other advice?" He asked, looking his notes over.

She stood and gathered her things. "Normally I'd say to just be yourself, but in your case, try to reign it in a little bit. You're not there to show off, you're there to highlight John and Mary on one of the most important days of their lifetimes."

He scoffed, but wrote it down anyway.

"Well, I'll just be going then. And, Sherlock?" She paused. "You're welcome."

As she walked back to St. Bart's, he nodded and reviewed his notes again.


	2. Chapter 2

As Sherlock became more and more desperate, he reached out to Mary for advice. She met him at his flat and began making tea.

"So what's this all about?" She asked once she had settled into John's chair, which had been pushed off to the side 'so I could get a better view of the kitchen' Sherlock had said. 

"I-I need you to..." Sherlock said. "I was wondering if... for John's wedding-and your wedding too, of course, um..."

Mary smiled at him. "You need help? The great Sherlock Holmes needs help writing a silly little speech?"

"It's important to John. I don't want to get it wrong."

She nodded. "Maybe talk about what he was like as a flatmate. Like how he always sleeps with the window open and always wears socks to hide those big hobbit feet of his. Or about how you met, how your friendship grew."

He swallowed hard. 'How your friendship grew.' Poor Mary. Didn't know the half of it, it seemed. "John saved my life."

"Then write about that. Was it during a case?"

"Sure, sure," he said absentmindedly. Then he sort of looked off into space and Mary just sat and watched the gears turning in his head and drank her tea. 

 

"This guy? A junkie? Have you met him?" John had asked during Lestrade's drugs bust.

"John," Sherlock had warned.

And surely, if things had played out differently, if Sherlock hadn't taken an interest in another human being, he knows he would have gone back to it. Once an addict, always an addict. If not for John, an overdose would have eventually happened. Intentionally or otherwise, Sherlock was not known for being a happy person. Happiness and intelligence so rarely overlap in a single person. The one thing he never anticipated becoming addicted to was John Watson. 

After a New Year's party, not long after Sherlock kissed Molly and wished her a happy christmas, recently-broken-up-with John spent the night in with Sherlock. They were between cases and John thought it festive to come home with two bottles of champagne. The two of them were always very happy drunks when in one another's presence. Sherlock was a bit less overwhelming to be around and John allowed himself to give in to the loose limbed, no filter, warm feeling of the alcohol. 

Sherlock had drank much more than John, so when it was nearing five in the morning and dawn was setting in, John scooped Sherlock up from his chair and helped him make his way to bed. 

"Lie on your side, Sherlock," John had advised. 

Sherlock nodded and winced a little. "Has the world always been so... spinny?"

"It happens when you've drunk too much. Just get some sleep. With any luck, you'll feel better in the morning. Or, at the very least, you'll be all squared away and back to your arrogant self by the day after tomorrow."

"You think I'm arrogant?"

"Of course."

"Such a derogatory term for someone like me."

"What do you mean?"

"I can't help what I am."

"I know that, Sherlock. No one can."

"In my life, I've been given so many labels. Psychopath-which is incorrect, by the way-freak, show-off, a liar, a sociopath, queer, arrogant."

John sighed and sat on the edge of Sherlock's bed. "You can be whatever you are. Other people's opinions of you are not important. Not to me anyway. I see you, Sherlock. I see you." He brushed his hand down the length of Sherlock's arm and patted the back of his hand to make his way back to his own room, but Sherlock managed to catch him by the wrist. 

He sat up in the bed and looked so confused before leaning forward and kissing John. And John gave into the kiss, the warmth of Sherlock's breath, the hand on the back of his neck, the way he was being guided onto the bed. 

"Stay," Sherlock asked. "Just for tonight. Stay. Please?"

John always slept on the right side of the bed, so Sherlock shifted over to give John space. Unlike how he imagined this playing out, John rolled onto his side and lined his body up with Sherlock's. He rested his head on the same pillow as Sherlock, and wrapped an arm around his waist. 

"For tonight, I'll be yours," he whispered into Sherlock's ear. 

"For always, I'll be yours."

 

Sherlock looked up and found Mary looking quizzically at him from over her tea cup. "You alright?"

"Yes. Of course. Thank you so much, Mary, but I have a very busy day of detective-ing to do today so I must ask you to leave."

"Oh. Right, then. I'll show myself out," she said even though she knew he was no longer listening. He picked up his violin and started playing something that she could not recognize. Maybe something he had composed himself. At the bottom of the stairs, she looked back and smiled fondly at Sherlock. 'He's going to be fine,' she thought to herself.

**Author's Note:**

> i imagine my tenses are all over the place, you'll have to forgive me. questions, comments, lists of reasons why your favorite breed of dog is better than all other breeds of dog, and concerns all welcome.


End file.
